Hacking a Community Makerspace: How Can We Promote Collaboration, Innovation and Efficiency of the Community Makerspace?

Milagros Zingoni (Arizona State University)

Makerspaces benefit local economies, educate communities, and give users a place to access skills and tools that otherwise would be financially or spatially difficult to own or access. They are also a hub for community driven transformation as they can be a breeding ground for innovation and education. A cohesive framework is needed for the development and sustainability of these community-based workplaces. This study is an action research that investigates key elements that can be improved in an existing makerspace on main street in a city in the south west of the United States.

The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). Surveys and interviews were collected to identify users’ perceptions of the environmental settings that supported or discouraged collaboration, innovation, efficiency.

The study did an inventory of the existing conditions of the maker spaces, interview it’s members and explored a set tools in the form of a “kit of parts” that responds to the users’ needs. The findings fills a gap in the research of makerspaces and how we can improve the functionality and user experience in order to make this valuable community resource more user friendly.